A man in the suburbs of Melbourne was arrested today for taking a vacuum cleaner from a pile of hard rubbish someone had left out for the council to pick up and get rid of. One of the things our council rates and taxes pay for is an annual collection service of all the big junk we can’t fit in the back of our city hatches to take to the tip. Or for that matter, can’t afford to take to the tip – it costs upwards of $200 at our local tip to ditch a television. People keep these things in the shed or under the house until collection day and then dump it all on the side of the road for the council to take away.
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Curb Burgling: Or Don’t The Cops Have Real Crimes To Solve?
In Case You Needed More Proof…..
Whilst in Bedouin Town, Mrs Bedouin showed me that kitsch isn’t solely the domain of seaside retirement towns and my side garden. The country has it too. I can feel a travel slash garden ornament coffee table book trying to be born. It hurts.
A country cousin of my wheelbarrow was in situ behind the local cafe (coffeeshop, let’s not be having any of that foreign lingo). I gloated inwardly at first at how beautiful mine was in comparison until I realised that the lovely owner of this one is gardening in a semi-arid region, her tank water is for all aspects of life (if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down) and not just for the garden, and she was quite possibly old enough for the barrow to have been her’s as a girl, and wasn’t something picked up at the local antique shop because it had charm.
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Gardening Lubrication
This is how it’s done in Crazy Garden Ladyland.
Glass Tunnel, Soap Boxes and Shoe-cycling
My Glass Tunnel of Joy has a twin that has been languishing in the Back of the House Garden, looking wonderful but absolutely not earning its keep. Where to place it has been an issue and up until this weekend the original glass tunnel has been sufficient. But it’s nearly spring and because I’m the impatient type I’ve jumped the gun a wee bit on the planting and I was clamouring for more space.
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Mid-Winter Shenanigans in the Garden
Yes, there are shenanigans going on in the garden. Who woulda thunk it? It’s cold out, the sunshine only requires a factor 15, half of my garden is hibernating – as I wish I could be – and yet the other half is getting up to all sorts of interesting things.
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The England Files: Part IIIc – Harewood House
Crazy Car Man and I ventured from the formal Terrace at Harewood House to the slightly more informal Himalayan Garden. This garden appealed to me a lot more. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate the time and effort that goes into the grooming of a garden like the Terrace, but trimming the hedges with a pair of nail scissors and a laser sight is not really my idea of a good time.
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I Need To Build An Ark Part II – Hope
It’s not all doom and gloom and scuba gear in the garden – I thought my newly planted *cringe* wheelbarrow planter would be a write off, but I spied tiny green today.
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One Man’s Trash…..
What better way to pass the time on a bizarre still Sunday whilst waiting for the ‘cyclone’ to hit than going for a cruise in the Kingswood with Crazy Car Man, scouting the junk piles in the wealthy area just south of us for detritus I can use in the garden?
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Flowers in a Barrow
I’ve done it. I’ve slid down the slippery slope into the world of garden frippery. Not only has a gnome made it’s sneaky way into my garden, but now, so has a wheelbarrow. And not a wheelbarrow for wheeling things around, oh no, but a wheelbarrow as a planter. It’s a downward spiral from now on, today a wheelbarrow, next month a wishing well and by Christmas a kangaroo, in a hat with corks, fishing from a fake pond. Sigh.
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Proud Mama
Our friend from Thailand, Tat, spent the weekend just gone on the farm with us, and he had with him his new toy. Which I want. It’s now a toss up as to whether I covet Tat’s toy more or Alys’s.
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